


3 Years Later (A Song to Bring You Home)

by ohvienna



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Depression, F/M, Fanmix, Flashbacks, Foreplay, Future Fic, Marijuana, Music, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Romance, Series Finale, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:53:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvienna/pseuds/ohvienna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dreams and memories, looking back. Disjointed stories about James Ford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3 Years Later (A Song to Bring You Home)

**Author's Note:**

> Fic + fanmix, made for the Lost Land community on LJ. On and post-Island. Spoilers ahoy. This is too many ridiculous words, my sincerest apologies. Normally, I don't try to explain mixes in great detail, and think people should just have at it. But I did try to do some things with this that I thought I should ramble about for a second. The mix and fic go hand in hand, with songs used as jumping off points for the short vignettes that follow. The songs chosen are meant to (hopefully) evoke several layers of time simultaneously (of course, not everything all the time, as that would be impossible, but): James and Juliet in the Seventies (their time together as well as the immediate aftermath of her death), James several years post-Island, looking back over his life and that time, and even a little bit of sideways thrown in. Two or three songs cast a wider net regarding his story (particularly the last two), while the majority pertain to their relationship. I was hoping to achieve a specific tone, one that kind of captures that mood of looking backwards, of dreams and memories, depression and nostalgia and moving on after experiencing a personal tragedy, but at the same time creating a chronological narrative of these two coming together, of him losing her, and of starting to live again off-Island. If that makes sense. (I think there's a way to read most of the songs lyrically from different vantage points in their/his life, ex.> "At the Hop" not only traces their tentative start, but also a later denial, a hope that he can somehow conjure her back into his life again). It's all 100% from the point of view of/about James Ford. My apologies in advance, the middle bit of this mix throws him into a dark pit of despair (plainly, I'm trying to depress the crap out of everyone), but as the arc of the songs curves back up, things get better again as you listen, I promise. One more thing, re: fic: with the exception of the intro/epilogue, in case it's somehow not clear (in which case, my bad):
> 
> *Italicized text = Dharma-era.  
> Regular text = Anywhere up to three-ish years post-Island (for the most part).
> 
> (Originally posted on Livejournal 4/2/2011)

  
  
_I half expect to see you_  
 _fill the autumn air_  
 _like breath —_

_At night I sleep_  
 _on clenched fists._  
 _Days I'm like the child_  
 _who on the playground_

_falls, crying_  
 _not so much from pain_  
 _as surprise._  
 _I'm tired of tide_

_taking you away,_  
 _then back again —_  
 _what's worse, the forgetting_  
 _or the thing_

_you can't forget._

-"Redemption Song," Kevin Young

 

 

  
_"'Real world.' I don’t even know what that means anymore."_

 

***

 

  


 

He creates a list of memories, sometimes dreams,  
cast in a haze of Island sun  
and the passage of time.

(This wasn’t his idea, but an offhand suggestion from a shrink.  
[Not the right word. they get offended, he learned fast. Psychiatrist.]  
He went a handful of times. Caved under peer pressure. And one too many  
sleepless nights.)

It's been three years, or thirty-three, depending on his mood.  
Soon, he realizes, she will have existed longer in his mind  
than as flesh and blood beside him.

***

In sleep, his mind has always been overactive. Ever since he was  
eight, his subconscious would take hold more often than not, and  
plague him with nightmares.

As an adult, his mind still prefers to engage in this particular  
brand of torment. (It's a familiar acronym.)

When he can’t sleep, he watches Seventies sitcoms  
(TV - one of the things his Dharma home lacked),  
and they remind him of being a kid  
and they remind him of yesterday.

They’re comforting; the music and families and houses  
and backyards and pat resolutions.

(Sometimes his nightmares have a laugh track.)

***

He does have good dreams (they're becoming more frequent).

A mix of memories and subconscious embellishments.  
He peels them apart when they come into focus, soft or sharp.

He writes the real things down, as instructed.

Re-reads them.

It’s a photo album,  
because he has no photos.

***

**01\. at the hop | devendra banhart**

 

put me in your suitcase  
let me help you pack  
'cause you're never coming back

well, i won't stop all of my pretending  
that you'll come home  
you'll be coming home  
someday soon

put me in your tongue tie  
make it hard to say  
that you ain't gonna stay

wrap me in your marrow  
stuff me in your bones  
sing a mending moan  
a song to bring you home

 

_*She tended to select the older records in their collection  
over the new releases (older being a relative term, 50s and 60s). _

_These were normal nights,_

_and they blurred together. Blended into yellow, green,  
and orange (their decade had a color scheme). _

_Chilled burgundy wine (always a box in the fridge),_  
 _her fingers gripping the long glass stem,_  
 _the snap-sigh of sweating Dharma beer cans._

_The look on her face as he drunkenly_  
 _serenaded her to "Rave On" that one night,_  
 _clad in socked feet and boxers,_  
 _sliding down their hallway,_  
Risky Business _to the wrong song, eight years too early._

_He crashed into her, wrapped his arms around the small of her back._

_"Happy anniversary."_

_Her eyes narrowed, because it wasn't._

_"Of the day you didn't leave me all alone on this rock."_

 

It's in the still of his living room while reading a book  
that he thinks she's about to walk, grease-stained  
and exhausted, through the front door.

It's in that second before waking that he can still feel  
the phantom weight of her arm draped across his chest.

 

**02\. bright pink bookmark | frightened rabbit**

instrumental

 

_*He can’t remember everything they read, because they read a lot,_  
 _all the same books._

_He took pleasure in the sound of pages turning as they sat_  
 _side by side, or her legs across his lap,_  
 _or straight up against the headboard in bed_  
 _(he called her Carol the first time they looked askance_  
 _at each other in this domestic position._  
 _She called him Mike, and he_  
 _fell in love with her just a little bit more)._

_She had a sliver of Dharma-labeled cardboard from a cereal box_  
 _that she used as a bookmark._

_He dogeared pages._

_On a few occasions, they tackled the same novel at the same time,_  
 _their placeholders becoming a race_  
 _to the finish._

 

He re-reads some of their favorites, and in his mind  
he tries to hear the words in her voice.

 

**03\. everyday | rogue wave**

everyday it's getting closer  
going faster than a roller coaster

a love like yours will surely come my way

everyday it's gettin' faster  
everyone said, "go ahead and ask her"

come what may  
do you ever long for true love from me?

 

_*It was small, the stone. There was no excess of_  
 _income to speak of. But it suited._

_Sometimes there were months between new shipments of goods_  
 _(and recruits) from the mainland. While he waited,_  
 _he figured he'd have time to let the idea grow_

_tangible._

_He never thought himself worthy of this kind of relationship._

_Capable of this kind of commitment._

_It was small, but it still glinted in the sun when he_  
 _held it in his palm._

_He was going to ask._

_But the timing had to be right._

 

He used the word widower once  
and it didn’t feel like a lie.

He was (now) sure she would have said

yes.

In one particular nightmare, she says it over and over and over again.

[He leaves her standing on the dock and dives into cold water, frantic.  
Searching for a flash of gold he let the Island swallow. He turns  
while submerged, sees her waiting through the surface.

But this is a needle in a haystack.

And there's blood on his hands,  
darkening the water.

He swims until he’s bogged down,  
swims until he sinks.]

This is not his worst recurring dream.

 

**04\. babe, you turn me on | nick cave and the bad seeds**

now the nightingale sings to you  
and raises up the ante  
i put one hand on your round ripe heart  
and the other down your panties

you race naked through the wilderness  
you torment the birds and the bees  
you leapt into the abyss but find  
it only goes up to your knees

everything is falling, dear  
all rhyme and reason gone

it's just history repeating itself  
and, babe, you turn me on

like an idea  
like an atom bomb

 

_*Some nights were so hot, so claustrophobic,_  
 _he thought he was going to lose his mind._

_And maybe they both did, just a little._

_On the record player: Heart. "Magic Man." Volume up._

_He was an upstanding member of the Initiative now,_  
 _but this was the DI. Part community of scientists,_  
 _part secluded hippie commune._

_And it was 1976._

_"We need to do this more often."_

_As she spoke, he flicked ash into the bowl on the coffee table,_  
 _slid back on the sofa next to her. Nestled in._

_"Frolic in the autumn mist?"_

_The rain outside sounded like a monsoon,_  
 _and the way the smoke left her lips made_  
 _him ache._

_She tilted her head back, shot him a smile._  
 _She had never looked more at ease. He brought his lips_  
 _to hers, and she mumbled, between steady, slow kisses,_

_"Misinterpreted._

_Not about_

_pot."_

_His right hand inched towards her stomach,_  
 _tracing one finger across her skin at the edge_  
 _of her waistband..._

_"Get high as kites, then."_

_...and moved slowly underneath._

_She shifted her hips, stretched out her legs_  
 _at his touch._

_"James."_

_His hand slid downwards, and she closed her eyes._

_And started to laugh._

_"Inspired by the music?"_

_The pace of his fingers quickened, and she reached out_  
 _for the armrest. Anticipation._

_"Hey, Blondie."_

_"Mmmm."_

_"Stop talking."_

 

Daydreams are best. He aims for realism.

That night in the power out (responsibilities be damned).  
Years of lazy, sunny Sundays (slow and steady).  
Those times in the dark when they needed to forget (fast and urgent).

He only had one recurring nightmare before the Island.

Now he has too many.

[He follows her through the jungle, catching glimpses  
between the leaves. He gets within reach, but  
just before that final step  
the ground opens up, dark and bottomless.  
He's always too late.]

Every morning, he curls into the empty space beside him,  
and he has to relearn how to breathe.

 

**05\. butterfly | wintersleep**

mom told me i had her pretty eyes  
mom told me i'd be a butterfly

mom told me of angels in the sky  
mom told me good people never die

it's not fair

 

_*July 1976._

_Daniel had said it with some conviction, and James_  
 _didn't care to test any theories for himself._

_He figured out which trip to the mainland would get him_  
 _back in time to change everything,_  
 _but he never gave it serious consideration._

_Not really._

_It was easier to ignore._

_What's done is done._

_That week, he was cagey, distracted._  
 _They talked about anything and everything else._

_Once, in the silence when it hovered in the air between them,_  
 _she had held out her hand, and he entwined his fingers with hers._

_During that night, sleep was a distant concept. He thought about_  
 _his home in Jasper, Alabama, of alternating red and blue lights,_  
 _of blood on his blue checkered comforter,_  
 _and of eyes full of pity looking downward. Remembers kicking aluminum cans_  
 _in the backseat of his uncle Doug's Pinto at three o'clock in the morning, and_  
 _headlights snaking through the dark._

_James stared at the wall, and her arm wrapped around him, tighter_  
 _than usual. It was this grip that made him sure._

_He hadn't made a mistake._

 

After four decades and change, he'd lost, sometimes right  
in front of his eyes (he piled the blame onto himself,  
higher and higher):

good friends, his father, his mother, and her.

She had wanted to go home. To see her family again.

That's all, really.

That he had received the ticket out  
was one more thing he decided he could  
never come to terms with.

Every step he took (from the moment he walked off that plane),  
and every move forward (the long walk from his car  
to his daughter's doorstep for the first time).

_"I wanted you to be able to go home."_

Every single one spoke her name.

 

**06\. to build a home | the cinematic orchestra**

there is a house built out of stone  
wooden floors, walls and window sills  
tables and chairs worn by all of the dust

this is a place where i don't feel alone  
this is a place where i feel at home

i climbed the tree to see the world  
when the gusts came around to blow me down

i held on as tightly as you held onto me

cause i built a home  
for you  
for me

until it disappeared  
from me  
from you

 

_*He loved his adopted decade, and he knew that she did, too._

_The first time he saw her with braids in her hair he made a_  
 _mental note. Saved the image for later recall._

_They were not together, then. But he was starting to realize._

_These little beats kept stacking one upon the other, until they were_  
 _face to face with little to say, both understanding the next move._

_And they took it._

_Her knowledge of the ins and outs (where the fuse box was without_  
 _searching, faucet tricks, faster routes and shortcuts,_  
 _hidden locations, man made or otherwise), unsettled. Momentarily._  
 _Brief recollections of their first meeting would surface and twinge,_

_but that time was over and done._

_They were both overcoming their pasts, rewriting themselves as they_  
 _settled into a time and a place they knew they couldn't rewrite._

_Surrounded by Dharma-issue everything,_  
 _knickknacks that weren't theirs...at first, it felt like he was_  
 _subletting someone else's fully-furnished life._

_And then she named the ceramic cat on their dresser after a stray_  
 _she had saved as a child._

_Then they had their chairs claimed,_  
 _positions on the couch,_  
 _favored sides in bed._  
 _Left, right._  
 _His and hers._

_On the day they moved in to the house that_  
 _they would call theirs (and theirs alone),_

_before she could protest, he picked her up,_  
 _cracked a joke (that said_ this is in jest) _to hide_  
 _the part deep down that had already realized he_  
 _didn't want it to be_

_and walked across the threshold._

 

Home, now, was harder to define. It wasn't  
yellow walls, and it wasn't her, because she was  
gone.

It was the people around him, the ones who cared, and that  
he would always care about. They were the only ones who  
could ever understand.

It was in the way Clementine did look like him when she smiled.  
She was growing up fast, and he had already missed so much.

It was second chances, being the  
person she showed him he could be.

_"No. You just lived here for awhile. This was never your house."_

Those words had stung, and they had been lies.  
For him, the word home, in its truest form, would always  
conjure up just one place and point in time.

 

**07\. bright future | bowerbirds**

couldn't you've stayed on the ground  
couldn't you've stayed on your feet

but your mind was wound so tightly  
always bold and wise and unsettling

i live in your tall trees  
amongst your fearless leaves

saw the bright colors  
bright future

 

_*They had a shorthand, and he knew, better than anyone,_  
 _how to read her. Sometimes he'd catch her_  
 _staring out of the window, distant._

_He didn't need to ask what she was thinking about._

_These moments. He thought about them while he kept up his search,_  
 _kept up hope that they'd get back to their own time, even though he_  
 _was more than content with the life he had found there._  
 _The four walls he called home contained everything he needed._  
 _Everything about his life as he pictured it stretching out for years_  
 _would be better than fine._

_He could even weather the Eighties again._  
 _As long as he had her._

_But he'd think about those moments when she seemed far away from him,_  
 _and he knew well that, in her heart, home would always be_  
 _two places at once._

_And she had been away from one_  
 _for too long._

 

He has many regrets. The chaos of those last days and his (non)action during  
them topped a long list.  
He had watched as the world they knew caved in, and bit by bit  
she grew unsteady, unsure.

He pinpoints all the moments where he could have said more.  
Done more.

It takes him a long time to figure out what, exactly, he  
can impart to her sister, and an even longer time to convince himself  
that he should.

He takes a certain comfort in her legacies.

An eight-year-old boy, shy and quiet, brightest in his class.

A sister, celebrating another birthday.

And himself.

 

**08\. i just don't think i'll ever get over you | colin hay**

i drink good coffee every morning  
comes from a place that's far away  
and when i'm done i feel like talking  
without you here there is less to say

i'm no longer moved to drink strong whiskey  
'cause i shook the hand of time and i knew

that if i lived 'til i could no longer climb my stairs  
i just don't think i'll ever get over you

your face it dances and it haunts me  
your laughter's still ringing in my ears

 

_*The hammock, and falling out of it for the first time_  
 _(they're much more accommodating to one body)._

_He had heard it before._  
 _That steady, low-register laugh, let loose_  
 _while they lay in an unhurt but bruised heap on the grass._

_But it was then that the thought hammered itself home, and he_  
 _spoke it aloud, only taking a second to swallow, to let it settle,_  
 _to turn and look her in the eye._

_"I love you."_

_He didn't wait for a reply, just paused for a moment then stood, and_

_held out his hand._

_She took it._

_Eventually, they managed to maneuver, balance, comfortably tangle._

_Her lips close to his ear, she whispered the words back._

 

He remembers his response to Horace's query, and  
most of it was true.

_"It's only been three years, Jim. Just three years that he's been gone._  
 _Is that really long enough to get over someone?"_

It's been three more years since that day,  
and James has revised his answer.

 

 

***

 

 

**09\. starving robins | horse feathers**

met with the mightiest change in the breeze  
and with that wind in mind there's the truth  
beyond by the creek lies the memory of youth

where's the spring?

like a light is to dark there's an end to this thing

and with that end in mind there's the truth  
beyond by the creek lies the ghost of my youth

 

[The sliver of light under the door as he peered out  
from under the bed,  
slow, heavy footfalls on wood,  
the creak of box springs.]

When the second shot rang out, he would wake without fail.

That nightmare disintegrated along with  
a name that wasn't his.

Taking its place was  
her hand slipping,  
her fingers loosening,  
releasing on purpose.

 

Once, early on, he awoke to a little girl's scream down his hallway.

It was one of her first weekends with him, and it took a moment  
to snap to his senses, run to her door.

She claimed to have seen a shadow. But it was nothing, daddy, and she didn't  
believe in monsters in the closet anymore.

After a while, he found himself waking up less and less  
in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

But he didn't need someone to convince him that monsters weren't real.

He already knew too well that they were.

He had just learned to live with them. He knew, in the end  
(when he ran through a mental catalog of good memories, and of  
all the things he had in his life now)  
that everything was going to be  
okay.

 

**10\. life is life | noah and the whale**

well you used to be somebody  
and now you're someone else  
took apart his old life  
left it on the shelf

sick of being someone he did not admire  
took apart his old things  
set them all on fire

he's gonna change, gonna change his ways  
gonna change, gonna change his ways

and it feels like his new life can start  
and it feels like heaven

 

_Sawyer._

 

The conman. The criminal. Two bullets sent him on a  
path he was always meant to walk.

He took the new pen, finished his letter.

Two women had loved him with that name on their  
tongues. And he had loved them in return. It was in doing so  
that he began, slowly, to change his stripes.

 

_LaFleur._

 

He had chosen it for himself. It was a con, and it wasn't.  
Survival mattered most, and it was the first word  
that had sprang to mind. He'd always been good at  
improvising.

Becoming Sawyer meant moving backwards, shutting down and closing off.

Becoming LaFleur had been an opening up, a shedding of skin.

And all the time she had been there, loving him without  
pretense, as if all the things that came before didn't, and  
never would, matter.

It's hard to see past the thought ingrained in him that,  
had they separated those six years ago,  
she might still be alive,  
maybe even off that godforsaken Island.

He imagines himself dead and buried, pictures her reuniting  
with her family.

And it isn't fair.

He considers what his own life might have turned out like,  
had she left on that first sub out.

Imagines wiping out those three years,  
that damn plan working,

all of their time together  
gone  
in a spark and a flash.

He dismisses the notion.

 

_"I'm glad you talked me out of it."_

 

It's not worth thinking about.

 

***

 

**.zip** on [mediafire](http://www.mediafire.com/?0rmifa3d81emy8n)

 

***

She squeezes his hand.

"What did you say? Dad? Daddy?"

"...the machine ate my dollar. I only got one left."


End file.
